


Breathe

by TalicTriesToWrite



Series: A Collection of Stray Kids Oneshots [1]
Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Idols, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Light Angst, Phobias, Sad with a Happy Ending, Secrets, Seo Changbin-centric, Soft Seo Changbin, Swimming Pools, Symbolism, Water-related Asphyxiation, mark this for later u cowards
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:41:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21704641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TalicTriesToWrite/pseuds/TalicTriesToWrite
Summary: Seo Changbin has never been a fan of water.Especially when memories hold him underwater and leave him gasping for air.
Series: A Collection of Stray Kids Oneshots [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1564417
Comments: 16
Kudos: 155





	Breathe

Seo Changbin has never been a fan of water.

So, when Stray Kids’ management team tells the nine of them that they are filming a surprise season special episode at the pool in one hour, Changbin is less than thrilled.

Of course, it had to be the pool of all things. He would have rather a wide dark beach – one with deadly crashing waves and turbulent waters – he would rather some water that _moved._

It was the stillness of the pool that was his true fear after all.

It wasn’t a phobia based off nothing – he knew exactly where it was from – but he couldn’t exactly just blurt that out in front of the cameras. He had never told anyone about it, not his friends in school, not his therapist he saw once a month, and not his members.

The _situation_ or several situations he had found himself in where his fear of water was formed, was in the past and he would do anything to keep it that way.

“Are you excited, Bin?” Felix’s slightly-forced voice breaks Changbin out of his spiralling thoughts. He remembers to quickly plaster on a smile for the camera in front of him and the other members around him.

“Yeah, of course” he grits out and tries not to notice Minho, ever-observant Minho, looking at him beside him. “Yeah,” Changbin says again, trying to quell the racing of his heart and convince himself that he is in fact excited to voluntarily walk into the stagnant water all his nightmares are made off.

“-Yeah, I like to swim.”

However, Seo Changbin does not like to swim, and he doesn’t think he can stop the nervousness from showing on his face when he sees Woojin take his shirt off and change it for a rash-vest

Changbin peered at the water again, his lip already nervously fitted between his teeth.

It was unmoving, like a snake seconds before a strike. It was waiting for him.

And the wait, the seconds or minutes or hours of wait was what he feared most. It was trepidation. And it _had been_ – it _was_ unbearable.

But the water’s ripples, it’s violent splashes once the surface had been broken is inevitable. And Changbin dreads it with every essence of his being.

It was a reminder of what he’d rather forget. It was a physical and mental time travel back to Saturday mornings and his mother’s too-large-too-clean house, and the feeling of sharp nails digging into the back of his head, holding him down until-

“Binnie! Filming starts in five, prepare yourself, yeah?”

“Okay!” Changbin yelled back to Chan who was already splashing around in the water in all his shirtless glory, but his voice cracked almost embarrassingly and he shut his mouth, slightly glad that the cameras weren’t rolling yet.

“You might want to do some vocal warmups before shooting” Jisung, who he hadn’t even realized was next to him, said and playfully punched his gently on his shoulder.

Changbin flinched and jumped away from the younger almost comically. Nature of habit, he supposed. That, and the recollection of repressed memories that he _really_ didn’t want to think of just before filming.

Five. He had five minutes to compose himself – to rebuild his façade that he had kept up ever since he moved in with his friend at fifteen, then into JYP trainee dorms at sixteen, then retained even as an idol.

He could do it – he was fine, everything was fine it was just a swimming pool. He _could_ swim – sure, not as well as the Australians or Hyunjin, but it wasn’t terrible. But, he wasn’t fearful of swimming, but rather the water in itself.

Water that had been forced down his throat when he had tried to breathe.

He rubbed a hand over his chest as if to warm up his lungs. They felt cold and heavy as if filled with icy water. He coughed, pathetically spluttering as suddenly he was transported to the Saturday mornings at his mother’s when he was thirteen, but no water came up out of his chest.

“Hyung, are you sure you’re alright?” he heard Jeongin tentatively ask beside him and Changbin shook him off with a nod and a shake of his hand.

“Of course, Innie.”

Changbin ran a hand through his hair. He wondered how many lies he’d have to tell to keep his secret a secret. He turned away from the two youngest members and wrinkled his nose in disgust in himself.

He hated liars. They reminded him of his father.

He used to say ‘you can stay here for the weekend’ a lot, but every Saturday he’d still be driven to his mother’s expensive mansion-of-a-house without fail. Those were the days. The days when Changbin really began to wish a car would slam into their old beaten up Honda and leave his body so crushed and broken that he would die instantly and remain a tragedy.

It was better a tragedy than a pitiful charity case. But unfortunately, no car ever crashed into his fast enough to leave more than a slight headache (his father was never a good driver, even without the alcohol he had at every meal.)

So, when what his mother did to him was exposed, when she left the door unlocked and the neighbour, Ms Jun came in search to give his mother the large fruit plater she had won in the community ‘rich raffle’, he became that sad and pitied charity case in that stupid rich town.

He guessed he should be happy for his Mother’s riches – it was used as hush-money after all and that just made Changbin’s deepest traumas stay secret to everyone outside the street of gentrified fancy houses. That meant his school, his friends, the authorities, didn’t know, and that meant It gave him a chance to leave it all behind, rather than to have ‘victim of domestic abuse’ plastered on his school records.

“I’m so bad at swimming” Seungmin’s sulk broke him from his thoughts and he tried to immerse himself in the conversation he was blanking out on with Minho, Hyunjin himself and Seungmin. “I bet you are really good though, Binnie, I remember you told us your Mum would make you go to lessons.”

Changbin blinked in surprise. _Ah right_ he thought already blaming his past self for his words. _That’s what I told them all when we discussed sports we played as children, and of course, my first thought was water._

“Isn’t your Mum loaded Bin?” Woojin laughed, approaching the circle and that immediately made Jeongin and Felix listen in from where they were standing.

“I guess so” Changbin shifted under Minho’s calculative gaze.

She was back then at least – she lived in the good part of town in the largest house with three cars that she had her chauffeur drive for her. It was unfair really – after the divorce when Changbin was eight, both parties were supposed to split the money evenly, but of course, she had bribed the judge and he and his father were left with nothing but a six-pack of soju and a beat-up van.

After roughing it out on the streets for two weeks, his father landed them a shitty rat-infested apartment with stains from every substance possible tainting the cracked walls. It wasn’t much but it was a place and from every Monday to Friday it was home.

More of a home than his Mother’s mansion at least.

He could never call that home.

“Three minutes!” The call came out from the filming crew and Changbin forced himself to strip off his shirt.

He was fine, he could do this, he definitely did _not_ have time for an emotional breakdown about his past because he only had three minutes and, _oh my god_ that was only one-hundred-and-eighty seconds and the more time he spent trying to sort himself out, the less time he had until he had to get into the bathtub, _no_ the _swimming pool_ , and _fuck_ he _really_ couldn’t breathe-

“Changbin! Binnie?” The voice said frantically. “Can you hear me?”

Changbin _could_ so he tried to formulate an answer, but his voice didn’t seem to work and his throat and chest really started to ache so he tried to hold up an ‘okay’ hand signal but his hands were trembling so badly that every time he moved he felt his whole body shudder.

“ _Medic!_ ” Someone called but after a few more words everything fell into a distorted sort of silence. He couldn’t hear anything. It was like the world and his members and the filming crew’s voices had all disappeared like he was underwater and they all weren’t and all he could see was the swimming pool roof (wait why was he looking at the ceiling?) and that’s when he felt his cheeks start to become wet.

Water. It was always the culprit and the symptom.

Changbin moved his head to the left but all he could see was white – not his friends, not the pool, not the obnoxiously large swimming pool floats on the water’s surface. His knees hurt like he was kneeling, and his side hurt like he was being pressed into something harshly. He furrowed his brow in confusion and exhaled through his nose in frustration.

Bubbles flew past his eyes in a rush and he stared at them in a sick interest, but they were already gone.

He sucked in a breath.

And that’s when it hit him.

Ice cold water filled his lungs and he started the thrash helplessly, screaming underwater until all he could hear was the high-pitched sound of his yells fill his ears, just like the water had. Claws held his head down, gripping onto the back of his neck and his eyes stung as the stupid, stupid water started to-

Suddenly it was all gone.

“ _Holy shit_ , Bin, you just need to breathe, in for five, hold for five, out for five – you hear me? In for five, hold for five-”

Changbin just spluttered weakly, coughing up the imaginary water lingering in his lungs and sat up from his position on the floor (he must have fallen, it was the only explanation.)

“I’m fine Channie-hyung, I don’t know what happened” he offered but the several pairs of eyes trained worriedly on him, both from his members and the filming crew made him shut up. They looked so scared – something Changbin never wanted to see – they reminded him of his past self.

“You just…hyperventilated Changbin! That is so not okay” Jisung piped up and Changbin pretends he can’t hear him as he takes a few of those deep breaths Chan was telling him about.

“Are you feeling well enough to swim?” Hyunjin asked and Changbin tried not to stiffen up because that was the _exact_ reason he had the weird-panic-attack-situation in the first place.

An overwhelming desire to just say ‘no’ came over him, but he forced himself to nod and get off the tiled floor. “Yeah, I’m okay - I don’t know what came over me.” That seemed to be reassurance enough for the crew, the medic on hand and his members with the exception of Felix, Minho and Woojin who looked at him like he was about to fall over again at any second.

He blinked to clear his vision and saw the water, lying in wait for him. Just like it always had. Just like it did until his mother slammed his head back into the bathtub filled with ice to stop the swelling of his bruises so that maybe they would be gone by Monday morning classes.

It was the calm before the storm, before the inevitable.

He felt the fear in his chest stir again and rubbed a hand consciously over his chest, feeling his heart race beneath his palm.

“One minute, get ready, the opening shot is in the pool!” the crew shouted again. Changbin took in a deep thankful breath of air, not water, air, to steady his heart, that felt seconds from exploding.

One minute. One minute until he had to face his greatest fear.

“I know something’s wrong with you so are you gonna tell me now or later?” Minho brushed up beside him and murmured gently into his ear. Changbin cringed at his transparency and shuffled away from the elder.

“Maybe later” he answered hoarsely, the fib spoken through gritted teeth, but one look at his hyung’s face let him know that the lie was just as see-through as he was. “I’m sorry” he tailed on quietly.

Minho didn’t respond and just walked away and jumped into the water, a loud splash marking his departure.

“Thirty seconds!”

He watched as the three consisting of the maknae line jumped into the deep water and Jeongin’s dolphin-like squeal echoed joyously through the pool.

Changbin gnawed on his bottom lip nervously.

_“We need to get those bruises out by school-time otherwise you’re going to get us into trouble Changbinnie!”_

Changbin closed his eyes. He could do this.

_“Dammit Changbin, I got a call from your teacher! They asked me if I knew if you were getting into any fights because of your bruises! This is all your fault, come over here and let me punish you!”_

He coughed meekly, feeling his lungs turn to ice. He started to walk.

_“Are you stupid? Don’t breathe when you’re under the water idiot-boy! How are you a failure at everything?”_

He stood at the pool's edge, hearing the water lap gently beneath him. “-Ten seconds!”

_“Oh Changbinnie, you know I will always love you, don’t cry.”_

He felt his eyes water again and hoped that maybe the pool water would disguise his tears.

_“Promise me, you won’t tell anyone about this, yes?”_

He opened his eyes and saw eight expectant members staring up at him. His gaze drifted to the water. It's waiting for him.

_“Now Changbinnie, tell me; do you love me?”_

“I do” he whispered under his breath, and in one movement he jumped.

**Author's Note:**

> This came out of nowhere - I hope it was okay. 
> 
> The first work of my Collection of Stray Kids One-shots. Most works will be longer than this, however.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed?
> 
> Talic


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